the tranny point
10/8/99


I believe
heaven lies in my connection to god
hell lies in my connection to other people.

I willingly enter my own fires of hell
triggered by the reflections I see in the eyes and words of others.

I am terrified of entering other people's fires of hell
where they resist healing and act out to destroy what challenges them.

I have lived my life healing.

I have lived my life facing people for whom
healing came too hard
and the terror of being socialized
left them in pain, fear and rage
which my brightness & queerness triggered.

I know I cannot heal anyone else.
they must heal in their own time.

I know I can only come with an open mind & heart
others must choose to open their own mind & heart

I also know that I have been hurt
by people who have struck out at me
by people who have abandoned me
when my own fires burned too bright for them to stand
without growing.

I want love.
I don't want to have to join someone's recreated dysfunctional family to get it.

I want to be female.
I don't want to have to be
crudely femaled by people carving up my body.

My terror is not of my demons.
My terror is that my healing and message
will trigger the demons of others.

I have learned to hide my own message
in a reasonably normal wrapper
to avoid getting creamed,
both keeping me safe
and keeping me isolated
from other people.

I have the tranny stick up my ass
the one we wear as armor,
so we can stand like humans
and not just flow like metamorphosing shamans
who undermine order & hierarchy
by saying people have personal responsibility
to heal and transform
beyond the bounds of social stereotyping.

My mind and spirit are free.

My body is mired in armor

My emotions are caught between the two.
dreaming of flowing
fearing being creamed.

I have done the work,
time and time again
found my own healing
but what I can't find
is the healing of others
to engage my view of the world
and not get dizzy from disorientation.

People say they love my work
but I know
if they actually engaged my work
it would blow apart
the assumptions and expectations they find comfort in.

They want to play in head space
with a powerful idea
but not to apply it
to their own actions and choices.

Good ideas are criticisms of others
not challenges to who they are
because they have no time or energy for challenges
they are so tied up in their normative life.

If I show too much of my own nature
let the mask slip
then I risk
a few people having the hots for what they think I mean
one person getting it
lots of people trying to isolate, shun and silence me.

i know this isn't quite true.
many people will be hip
or just sort of gloss over the whole thing
or even admire me for standing up for who i am.

it's just the edges,
when i get in a scrape
that i fear
i'll just be a guy in a dress
a weirdo who hasn't even achieved being eccentric.

it's hard to live in a world
where you never know how people see you
and that vision
is subject to change vastly
in a heartbeat
if they decide you are a deluded, confused, liar.

hell
i know lots of oddball guys in dresses
who make some sort of life
but i know few (if any)
who have had the big operation
the stick removed from their ass
and who have achieved
the hardest thing for trannies
(according to one woman born female who had a tranny partner for years)
to be
relaxed
and not isolated, armoured, jumpy, hiding, attacking or apologetic
when faced with the demand
to explain, to defend, to be erased, to be dismissed
to be attacked, to be isolated as a freak
in every moment.

in relationship people see me as an individual
yet, in this world
many people don't want relationship
because that demands they be open to another
their gifts & realties
they just want to project
to cast people in their own fantasies
to cast people in their own little world

and that
to me
is hell.


the ultimate tranny surgery
is to have
the stick pulled out of your ass
the stick you put there
when you learned that
males who made the choices of women
were fair game,
stranded in no-man's, no-woman's land.

that stick we learn to cling to
that stick that reminds us
everytime we start to sway
loose is dangerous
tight is right

tight ass
on the defensive
mens room // womens room
no right decision
everything wrong
says the stick.

no flow
no go
where being loose
opens the juice
takes a risk
of someone being pissed.

a lifetime of sphincter splinters
thank you sir may I have another
always reminding you
you are wrong


trans is about expression.

some people say its about body, or about sex & eroticism
but i think those are not the point.

few transpeople are willing to change their body
and not express that change in the world.
many transpeople are willing to change their expression
and not change their body.

is sex and eroticism a physical thing
or is it a mental thing
an expression of who we are
an affirmation of that expression
which brings us to ecstasy on many levels?

we gender shift for expression.

we want -- we need -- to express who we are in the world.

and we want and need for that expression to be seen, understood and affirmed, too.

if transgender is about expression
it is about voice.

it's about finding a unique voice that expresses who we are
in a way others can understand.

transpeople born male who have lived as men (and not just boys)
have learned to speak in a bold & manly voice
or as manly a voice as we can muster.

women are often taught
to keep their voice quiet
subjugated to the group
soft and pliant
not bold or challenging

to live as women, it is often demanded
that we surrender our bold voice
often at a time when women our age are just finding their own bold voice.

our boldness
exposes our history & our biology
and that's what we are asked to hide.

but boldness in the world
is often challenged
attacked to silence it

sometimes that makes sense
when our boldness is bluff
we are bags of hot air
self-absorbed and self-defensive
not bold enough to be open
only ballsy enough to be individual and isolated.
we do need to let go of the hot air
learning to be bold and not just bald.

this is the challenge of gender shift
we lose the margins of safety
making choices that would be bold for women born female
leaves us exposed and vulnerable
when people want to challenge boldness
by yanking standing & silencing.

tomboy choices which come from a balanced approach
become guy in a dress choices
which leaves us stranded
in no-man's land
trying to hide anything possibly masculine
which would be read as manly
not just liberated.

it takes swinging a pendulum wide
to find a voice
as any teenager will tell you
as they search for their own expression.


i was such a pathetic closeted tranny
searching for someone to act
with makeup or clothes or other symbols
on the words i could not say out loud.

the memories of such nasty days
eyes crying and obvious
tongue swollen
howitzers of defense and rage
armed and ready


it's what you keep
and what you throw away
that defines a life and a transition

don't throw the baby out with the bath water
don't hold onto baggage.


on sunday
I went to a goth harvest masque
all decked out with tonnes of eyeliner
black and dried blood plum
heavy tights, platform boots
and no underwear.

no stuffed bra
no gaff or tucking panties
just a strong control top in my tights

I wanted to be loose and free
I spoke to a gentleman of size I had met before
but I made few contacts at the masque
goths don't make a lot of small talk
and besides
who the hell knew me
or what I was?

fat guy in a dress
gothed out?


Becoming Lowell Bushey
10/13/99

becoming lowell bushey

lowell bushey
is a guy in a dress
who loves frilly underwear
and at the age of 50
hasn't worn pants in 15 years
no wig, no breast forms
a real man
who just always
wears a dress.

this is my challenge
trusting that if i act like a crackpot weirdo
people will see
that i am not a crackpot weirdo
rather
i am someone with valuable gifts to give.

to voluntarily be a weirdo
in order
to not be seen as a weirdo
seems
crackpot to me.

trannys build an image
whatever that means
protective coloration
to blend into their surroundings.

to decide to stand out
among the surroundings
to just be bold and wild
and trust it is that very boldness
and trust it is that very exposure
and trust it is that very revelation
which will save me
is bizarre

to release control of how I want to be seen
and trust that
people will see me in truth
if i just let it all hang out
seems contrary to any life lessons

i worry about being a weirdo
yet
entering into that weirdosity
may be the only way out.

i played the clown role years ago
careful crafted weirdo
self-depricating and witty

i moved away from that
to a more centered presentation
to a more centered life
because
the weirdos
mostly unhealed and too odd
made me uncomfortable,
be they tranny or anything else.

yet,
my mother sees me as the one red ant
who strikes out on her own
in the dodge commercial

I have always been the wierdo, the freak
the crackpot, the iconoclast
the individualist, the loner
the one who stands against
the tide.

should i just trust
my years of questing for normativity
have taught me enough lessons
to let me be individual and still mainstream?

how do i let the freak flag fly
when i have no interest in being a freak
at all?

how do i just be weird
trusting that weirdness is not isolating
but connecting?

oy.